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Saladin Ahmed on Worldbuilding

Happy 2013! Wow! That sure is a sci-fi date; in my head it's still 1994. Like Billy Pilgrim, I feel like I've come unstuck from time, am floating free in history.

Enough of that blathering. Saladin Ahmed has strung together some words related to worldbuilding:

Even among writers and readers who agree upon the importance of world-building, there is great disagreement over how to do it right. A thousand blog posts have been launched arguing over how much detail ought to be revealed to the reader. Jordan's Wheel of Time series, in particular, is a sort of perennial target of parody, even among die-hard fans, padded as it can be with relentless descriptions of clothing, hairstyles, furniture and food. And Martin can spend page after exhausting page detailing the coat-of-arms of every attendee at a royal banquet. For readers used to the protocols of literary fiction, novels that come with glossaries and appendices can feel distinctly like homework.